Valve’s Portal 2 ARG Culminates in Shrewd Business
By Jared Newman | Friday, April 15, 2011 at 12:41 pm
For the last few days, the buzz among gaming blogs and Twitter was that Valve might release its mind-warping puzzle game Portal 2 on Friday, instead of Tuesday as scheduled. The speculation was sparked by an alternate reality game, which invited players to decipher images for clues of what would happen next.
As with most ARGs that are tied to marketing campaigns, participation is superfluous. Eventually all hands are shown either way, and so today we have a website that lays out the meaning behind the garbled messages: Yes, Valve will release Portal 2 earlier than expected, but only if people buy a $39 bundle of play any of 13 indie games from a bundle known as The Potato Sack.
Immediately, there were fears that the promotion would trigger a backlash — hell hath no fury like a gamer entitled — but so far the sentiment seems to lean in Valve’s favor. Of course, some people will complain. One disgruntled Twitter user said Valve will be “ranked among Activision in the evil department,” but I think most people recognize that this is a harmless promotion that supports independent game development.
It’s also an example of Valve’s clever business tactics with its Steam PC game service. The company is a pioneer of the downloadable video game fire sale, routinely giving away bundles of games at rock-bottom prices. In the case of Portal, Valve is using one of its most anticipated games to drum up sales of lesser-known titles, in turn feeding into the hype of Portal 2. Pretty clever, I think.
It’s just a shame for the folks who invested time and effort in ARG. They’re reduced to cogs in Valve’s marketing machine.
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April 15th, 2011 at 6:31 pm
Didn't participation in the ARG up to this point require purchase of at least one of the Potato Sack games anyway? All you'd have to do at this point is, y'know, play one of the games you already paid for.
This bizarre, disgruntled feeling seems to be stemming from a group of people who didn't participate in the ARG at all but had some kind of self-entitled feeling that they wholly deserve get Portal 2 early. I'm glad to see Valve trying to help encourage indie game development, and I don't see the problem with an entirely voluntary chance to expedite the release of their own game being tied to that. If you don't want to pay for any of the indie games then fine, you don't have to – you'll still get Portal 2 on it's release date.
April 15th, 2011 at 10:40 pm
We are in agreement.
April 15th, 2011 at 10:38 pm
My mistake. I saw the message "Play the 13 games in the Potato Sack to reboot GlaDOS," followed by a link to the bundle page, and interpreted that incorrectly. I've added a correction to the story.